Back in 1998 Mike Paradinas (Mu-Ziq) and Jochem Papp (Speedy J), already acclaimed electronic artists in their own right, collaborated on an album under the name Slag Boom Van Loom on Paradinas’ own label Planet Mu. Soon after the album was released the idea for a remix album was formulated. Unfortunately, it took a good 2 years for the album to reach completion and get released.

Opening and closing the album are remixes of “Poppy Seed” by Boards of Canada. The album opener transforms the track into a beautiful floating dreamscape of ambient tones and samples of children at play. Mu-ziq’s own remix of “Spc-Ch-Pn” transforms the track from a dolefully delicate piano piece into deep dubby techno tune. Leafcutter John’s rework of “Broccoli” not so much remixes the original as reinterprets the track in his own intricately constructed style. Similarly, Tipper gives “Butch” a digital overhaul by adding fizzes and distortion and injecting a hip-hop influence. Opting for a gentle atmospheric rework of “Pedals”, Planet Mu’s own Horse Opera combines electronic blips, pops, whirs and tones with gentle static distortion to great effect. Fourtet add more beats over the gentle drifting keyboard atmosphere in “Sutedja” rework while Pole’s remix of “Casual” remains fairly true to the original, taking layers of gentle static tones, adding clicky beats and allowing a tune to steadily build out of them. “Moon Base Alpha” is the cool fusion of a rumbling dubby bassline with a funk workout, the track smoothly switching from one style to the other towards to the close. “Fallen Angels Entering Pandemonium” is already a long quite dark track but Coil transforms it into an intense trip into your darkest nightmares. Amazing. The album closer, a reprise of “Poppy Seed” by Boards of Canada, is slightly more uptempo than their opening remix and is reminiscent of a 70’s science TV programme theme tune.

Remix albums tend to look promising on paper but rarely deliver in reality - a typical remix album might contain 2 or 3 quality remixes…if you’re lucky. “So Soon” is an exception to the rule and is consistently very good. Boards of Canada, Leafcutter John, Horse Opera, Matmos and Coil turn in remixes of particular note. An excellent album that was well worth the wait.